Research Tools and Techniques
Brain Slice & Culture
Our experimental systems include rodent brain slices, primary neuronal cultures, and reprogrammed human neurons
Molecular Manipulation
We perform knockout, knockdown, overexpression, and mutagenesis of neuronal genes to study their cellular function
Morphological Analysis
A primary hippocampal neuron loaded with fluorescent dye (Alexa-594), and imaged using a laser confocal microscope
Synaptic Imaging
Actively recycling presynaptic terminals (arrowsheads) are labeled with FM 1-43 probe, and monitored for vesicle release
Viral Expression System
This neuron is infected with a lentivirus expressing EGFP (green) and an epitope-tagged postsynaptic protein (red)
Biochemical Assay
An autism-associated mutation (blue residue, top) causes glycosylation defects (western blot, below) in a synaptic protein
Electrophysiology
The cell is patched with an electrode and its functional properties are recorded using voltage/current clamp
Gene Expression
Single cell qPCR indicates high (red) or low (blue) expression of different genes (columns) in individual neurons (rows)